Three in five don't think musicians should profit from downloads

Survey suggests public disdain for copyright

16 July 2009 0:01 GMT / By Duncan Geere

A survey of 2000 consumers in the UK has revealed that three out of five adults don't think that musicians should make any profit from their singles, albums and music videos downloaded online.

A surprisingly high 43% of people admitted to "never" paying for content that they were supposed to says Telindus - the network integration company behind the research. The figure rises for men, with over half saying that they never pay for content, compared to 38% of women.

Interestingly, consumers don't seem to care much about their own copyright either, with only a quarter of adults believing that they still own the rights to content they upload to Facebook, YouTube or MySpace. Almost a fifth believed that no-one had ownership rights to content once in the public domain.

59% said that they were aware of the piracy laws that govern downloading of content, with half knowing the consequences. A fifth admitted to knowing which websites to visit to download copyrighted content, which seems rather low considering how many said they "never" pay for that content.

Slight doubts as to the wording of the survey aside, Mark Hutchinson, managing director of Telindus said: "Content providers and ISPs need to work together to develop a structure that ensures that the creators don't miss out on revenues due to piracy and ISPs get rewarded for providing the extra bandwidth and experience required".

"Most importantly, the right holders and ISPs need to deliver an end user experience that consumers will be demanding and, ultimately, willing to pay for".

Recently, as reported on Pocket-lint, Twitter icon Stephen Fry echoed that sentiment, saying that content companies are currently "doing the wrong thing" when it comes to copyright. Popular support for local variants of the Pirate Party in recent months, as well as the outcry over the result of the Pirate Bay trial suggests that a more liberal approach to copyright is infiltrating the public conciousness.

Full tags

Software, Online, Music downloads, Websites, Statistics, Telindus